


urban cosmologia

by Anonymous



Series: Detective Akechi Case Files [2]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Historical, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Illiterate Character, Maids, Nonbinary Character, Other, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2019-09-07 15:59:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16857022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Maybe Akechi was destined for celebrity with a first case like this.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> reading the first thingy in the series is probably advisable for context but sometimes ppl don't want to know and i can respect that
> 
> tldr; actual detective akechi and assistant ren in ambiguously taisho/showa era/whenever devil summoner takes place

“They wore white like the driven snow,” said the radio, swathed in snowy static.

“Oh?” A deeper voice drawls. “One of those shadows perhaps?”

Crackling splits the air and blanks everything in Goro’s mind. He looks to the kerosene heater in time to catch the flare dimming. Out the corner of his eye his assistant also stops.

In the wake of the crackling the room falls so quiet he can hear the snow fall outside.

“Maybe,” the initial voice says dreamily. “I thought he looked like a,” the dreamy voice trails off.

“Like a...?” The deeper voice prompts after a while of dead static. 

“A phantom,” the initial voice responds, awake.

Goro resumes breathing, in the periphery Ren abruptly stands straight.

Ren unties their bow and sets the ribbon neatly on top of their discarded apron.

“Ren, you should take a break.” It comes out gruffer than intended. However he’s beyond burning the midnight oil, they both are. 

Marching to the stove Ren looks Goro dead in the eye and lifts the coffee pot to their lips then-

“Stop that,” Goro pinches the bridge of his nose and raises a hand. Honing in like an eagle where the spout presses into Ren’s bottom lip. 

“Just.”

‘Take a break?’

‘You don’t have to do this?’

Goro mulls over how well the last ten attempts went. He settles on asking Ren to pour him a cup as well. 

Clinking and clanking ring from the meagre kitchen as Ren gets to work. Goro closes his eyes and presses his palms into them hard until he sees the colours. A moment of rest, just a little while is okay. Heaven knows how long they’ve been at it.

“Stop that,” Ren parrots. Tugging a wrist away from his eyes and setting the mug on a coaster. Goro lowers his wrists, the colours fade to black which fades into mountains of newspapers and transcripts on his desk. 

“Is this the done pile?” Ren says before tugging away one of the newspaper mountains.

“Yes but there still might be something in one of those papers!” Goro throws a hand out to stop Ren, faltering when Ren tugs the pile out of reach.

Ren hums. “Are these notes?” they ask, brandishing the paper before Goro and pointing to the margins. Goro lunges for the paper, Ren doesn’t even blink when evading him.

“Yes they’re notes,” Goro huffs.

“I’ll copy them to your notebook.”

Goro raises an eyebrow at them but leaves it. Ren picking up a pencil and Goro’s notebook has his curiosity boiling. Alas the moment he dives back into the current newspaper he forgets about Ren and their handwriting altogether. 

“I’ve been so stressed, I can’t remember my nights sometimes,” chimes the voice swathed in snow.

“I’ve been hearing that a lot from young people these days.”

He doesn’t remember putting down the paper or turning to face the radio. On the lounge chair Ren picks up the pencil again.

Goro reads all of a paragraph before his attention is sought elsewhere.

“Detectivin’ is hard.” Ren mumbles, rubbing at an eye with the back of their hand. 

Goro cracks the first smile in hours. “Did you come here because you thought it would be easy?”

“Yes.”

Goro huffs a tiny laugh out his nose. 

“Me too,” he mutters.

Upon review Ren’s handwriting isn’t half bad, if a bit creative. One fear of many rises from its grave, only to rest again several days later when they take a field trip to a new dessert joint.

“I think I’ll have an affogato,” Goro murmurs. A sound like a small balloon deflating draws his eye to his assistant. In the months that Ren has been stationed at the offices Goro recalls an instance of Ren expressing emotion, maybe two. 

As they stand now Goro takes in their furrowed brows and the downturned corners of their lips. Staring at the menu board as if it were the world’s end crawling over the horizon, Goro has a feeling Ren would be less fazed were that the case.

“Or maybe an egg cream soda, I heard those are in vogue.”

Ren’s confusion begins to warp the space around them.

“Oh what about a phosphate?”

Ren makes another sound, like squeaky hinge and Goro can’t keep it up. Does a commendable job of restraining his laughter until he doesn’t, a point made when Ren chops him in the bicep.

“Right,” Goro straightens out his peacoat. “What do you want?”

“Something spicy.”

Goro has a disparaging comment locked and loaded but a twinkle in Ren’s eye stops him.

Mercifully they are no more hurdles before receiving their designated treats and finding an empty booth. 

“Slow day,” Ren says airily. Through a spoon in their mouth and looking out the window.

Goro stifles a snort. On a weekday well before lunch of course there wouldn’t be a crowd at the soda fountain. People were at school, or their legitimate non-farcical jobs. It might be a dig. Ren’s cloche hat hides their eyes, and Goro can’t divine anything from the outline of their nose and lips. It isn’t a dig, probably.

A newspaper sits on Goro’s side of the booth, the front page story catches his eye.

“An inside look at Okumura Department store,” he narrates. The article includes photos of worker dormitories, nurseries, a day care.

It all looks so different on this side. He tucks the newspaper into his attache case for further review later.

Turning away from the window, Ren points to the mug in front of Goro. “So it’s coffee with an ice cream in it?”

“Yes,” he drifts back to a conversation overheard in Lion Manor. “They have compatible flavour profiles.”

The spoon jiggles in Ren’s mouth as they hum, and that’s that.

***

The case arrived on a day like any other.

Another day of wondering what exactly he did here. Staving off the eternal thought that he was running a front, that he was a front. Which hadn’t bothered him, until the very day the office opened, when somehow he’d acquired a Watson before being Holmes. 

Goro looked to Ren sweeping the floor. Watson may have been generous.

Ren’s broom ran into a stray letter opener. Picking it up they flung it at the pin board next to Goro’s desk. Close enough that the air in front of Goro’s face sang.

Perhaps less generous.

“That’s not what the board is for,” Goro clicked his tongue. Extracting the blade after giving it a few tugs.

“What’s it for then?”

‘Cases’ popped into his mouth before Goro remembered. Ren didn’t mean for it to come off that way, probably. 

He should have been more alarmed about Ren’s sudden arrival, and initially he was, but Ren just seemed so…

Goro watched Ren push up their glasses and resume sweeping.

Ordinary.

A dime a dozen face, a dime a dozen maid outfit. Perhaps a quarter a dozen factoring the red bow. The type of face Goro would forget about promptly after looking away.

A knock at the door saved Goro the trouble of responding.

The door swung open to reveal a young woman dwarfed by her sweater and boots. Goro had the foresight to install a doormat in the office with the advent of snow. She stamped her feet on the doormat before coming in.

Greeting a client, something he had put a lot of thought into. Yet his tongue wouldn’t move. Across from him Ren froze in kind, eyes larger than Goro had ever seen them. Any other day it would have been funny, given how hyper-capabally Ren promoted themself at their first meeting

Recovering first, Ren set the broom aside and strode to the client.

“Welcome to the Akechi Detective Agency,” Ren bowed. “Mr. Akechi will be with you shortly.”

That broke the reverie, Goro narrowly avoided snorting. ‘Mr. Akechi’ was rich coming from Ren’s mouth.

Then Ren launched into the whole song and dance. Taking the guest’s muffler and coat, seating them, gently leading her to the kitchen and running through the beverage selection. The performance bought Goro ample time to prepare.

Straightening out his peacoat he sat on the other side of the coffee table, not a hair astray when Ren and the guest return from the kitchen.

Both settled in Goro finally got a good look at the visitor. 

“You’re…”

“Hello,” she tilted her head, eyes forming crescents.

Goro swallowed. “What brings you here?”

“The name,” she stifled a giggle. “Like the books.”

Goro spied Ren’s shoulders quaking, he elbowed them for it.

“And,” she frowned, “I’ve seen a few people about this already, it hasn’t gone very well.”

After the heiress told her tale, Goro could understand why. 

“What do you think?” she smiled wryly, “do you believe me?”

Schooling his face, he perched his chin behind steepled fingers. “That doesn’t change me looking into the matter.”

“I see,” she stood up. “Either way thank you for entertaining me this afternoon. Let me know if you need anything.”

Goro accepted her card, while Ren flitted about to retrieve her garments. 

“Wasn’t that interesting?” Goro wondered aloud examining the card. Looking up, Ren was nowhere in sight. They returned several uneasy minutes later. 

“She was curious about the coffee,” was all they said when prompted.

Which brings Goro back to the present. 

“You said Miss Okumura was interested in the coffee?” 

“Huh?” Ren begins swaying side to side and twirling their forelocks. “She was interested in the,” Ren makes a sound like someone drowning on land. “Beans,” they finish lamely.

Goro narrows an eye at the assistant. 

“It’s four in the morning, you should take a break.” Ren adds.

“I’m fine,” Goro monotones.

For the umpteenth time he runs a gloved hand through unkempt locks. A break would be great. However it’s been days, and these sparse interview transcripts and newspaper articles aren’t bringing him any closer to what in god’s green earth is _happening_ in Okumura department store at night. Attempting to investigate the situation firsthand had gotten...

Goro sighs.

It’s not an exam in the academy, where minor effort guaranteed success. It’s not a whodunit novel, where the cases more or less came pre-assembled. 

Ren doesn’t respond but they don’t move away from the desk either. 

“Coffee?”

“Please.”

Ren pours him a coffee in longer than expected order. The coffee grants him a second wind that lasts all of a few minutes. After that his eyelids weigh exponentially more with each second. Which is odd considering the fresh coffee. 

The coffee.

“What did you do?” Goro hisses at Ren. 

“Poison,” Ren says nonchalantly.

Then Goro is out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we can all be the girl in the box and the girl in the box could be anyone

“They wore red, like a woman I saw at the pictures,” says the radio. The voice smothered in billowing smoke and ash.

“Red? At the cinema?” Asks another, deeper voice.

“I don’t know where red came from,” the ash smoulders.

“Perhaps someone there?”

“No,” the smoke clears, ash settles. “The poster. A bright carmine poster. Her name was...”

“Decaffeinated coffee?” Goro drawls, twisting the dial on the radio. “I do hope this isn’t coming out of the budget.”

“Never,” Ren gasps dramatically. Paradoxically the word sounds like it was inhaled with a whoosh. They clasp an affronted hand to their chest.

Goro spends a moment projecting indignation at the back of Ren’s head, none of which appears to penetrate their thick skull.

“Coffee is a means to an end, why do we even have this?”

Ren drops their hand. “Sometimes people shouldn’t have caffeine.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Goro says deliberately looking down at Ren. What do they know. Ren is dial tone when picking up the phone, the patter of rain. 

Ren stares at him.

Something in their eyes flickers for a second. They adjust their glasses and it’s gone.

“Okay,” Ren says. Turning back to the cork board to fix newspaper cutouts and red string.

Goro watches Rens hands move. “Can you hand me that Gendai article? The one with the large picture of the heiress,” he appends hastily.

Ren unceremoniously rips the cutout off without removing the pin and hands it to Goro.

“You don’t like her very much,” Goro states, accepting the cutout.

“Dunno what you’re talking about,” Ren twirls a forelock.

“At least pretend to have some respect for our client.”

“What’s there to respect?”

Goro clicks his tongue. Ren would do well to play the game. An off-white perfumed card sits next to his typewriter, one of the morning’s arrivals. Scanning the card again a line catches his eye.

‘You may bring one guest.’

Goro tucks the card into his breast pocket and glances at Ren grinding coffee beans.

“Ren.”

They look up. 

“I think I’ll take your advice and take the day off. You’re excused.”

***

An entire carnival of events pounces upon Goro when he disembarks from the trolley.

“Good evening, welcome to Okumura Department Store,” twin guardians greet, bowing in unison. They each stand before a stone lion, wearing the store uniform give a muffler. Goro stops in his tracks to look at them, their stockinged legs in particular. Not a shiver from either of them despite the powdery snow all about. Someone bumps into his arm bringing Goro back. The ball, walking forward, going in.

Walking through the huge doors Goro stops again, this time not of his own volition.

“Good evening sir, your name and invitation please.” The door woman bows, as she lowers Goro sees the two girls outside rise in his periphery. 

_‘Akechi Goro, private detective.’_ Countless mornings looking at the man in the mirror, practicing this exact motion. Saying it to himself was one thing.

“Akechi Goro,” he coughs into his elbow, “private detective.” 

The attendant’s expression doesn’t change as she goes down the guest list. When the situation doesn’t resolve itself after a few moments Goro’s hands start to sweat.

“Oh hello!” Someone calls out from inside, the frantic clicking of heels follows. Goro looks over to the heiress rushing over. All smiles and pink cheeks, dressed in lavender and shrouded in a white fur boa.

“Good evening Miss Okumura,” the door woman bows to the heiress. 

Her arrival takes the heat off Goro, which is fine by him. “Miss Okumura it’s cold out.” 

She pays him no mind. “Detective Akechi is a special guest,” the heiress smiles and giggles apologetically. “He’s with me.”

“Of course Miss Okumura.” The pause there doesn’t escape Goro’s notice, neither does her beady-eyed stare. With how her stare lingers, Goro doesn’t think it’s supposed to.

“Sorry about that, detective,” the heiress takes his arm and leads him in. “They’re all a bit on edge. Grand opening and all.”

“Interesting,” Goro murmurs. “I thought it would be the fires.”

“You’re almost as bad as father,” the heiress laughs. “He’s been so paranoid.”

Goro has to reign his face in, Ren may have a point. “Between the fires at Junes and Kirijo Department Store and the strange incidents here I can’t say I blame him.” 

One misplaced blink he would have missed it. A shadow crosses her face and smile evaporates for but a second. It switches back on, not a watt too high or low. 

“Well, hopefully you can help with that,” The heiress taps a pensive finger to her cheek. “Detective you’re here alone?” She asks abruptly. 

“Should I not be?” Goro smiles stiffly.

The heiress tilts her head. “Your assistant?”

“I gave them the night off.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

“They haven’t had a break for…” Goro thinks on it, “ever.”

The heiress looks at something beyond Goro and her eyes go wide.

“I have something I need to attend to,” she mumbles quickly, already turning. “Enjoy the reception.” 

When she’s out of an earshot Goro looks in the direction she walked off in. Only to see the usual myriad of attendants and a man with dyed hair and a white suit. Which leads him to one conclusion, however the man pays the heiress no mind. In fact he doesn’t seem to notice anything beyond the pack of coffee-flavoured chocolates he holds. If he stares at the pack any harder it may burst into flames.

They’re the only ones in white suits. The man in the white suit looks up and makes eye contact with Goro, then Goro is the only one in a white suit. Goro doesn’t think he was making a weird face, not this time at least.

A draft hits his arm, he should walk further from the entrance. Passing several counters Goro finally finds a bit of open balcony railing to lean against. A ball in a department store, a different premise for sure. Below various guests twirl across the parquet floor, others socialise by various punch counters, many take advantage of the reduced traffic to get some shopping in.

“Sir are you lost?”

He didn’t see her walk over. His brain is filtering them out, must be.

“I’d like to learn more about the store.”

She stands still, round eyes mostly vacant. Goro thinks of one person alone in a large house. The lights flicker, some floorboards creak.

“The history of Okumura Department Store is detailed on the eighth floor,” she bows, “thank you for your patronage.”

Her heels click as she walks away. If he thinks about it the clicking never stops, nor does the drone of general chatter, the quiet music. It’s awfully difficult to think down here.

Goro peeks at the lifts and the attendants manning them. They all bow at the same angle, any regional accent shorn off. If Goro looks at the entire picture, from the store counters to the lifts to the help kiosks, it’s like the inside of a music box. It’s not so different from the Academy. Goro winces.

The girl on the right lift cranks the metal grates shut, no variation to her arm movements. Like a-

A queue builds in front of the left lift, he drifts towards it. 

The moment Goro steps up to the lift there’s a loud splutter from the back of the lift as someone’s imaginary monocle goes flying off.

“Miss,” they hem and haw. Goro doesn’t even have to look up. 

The bald man at the back of the carriage waves at the elevator girl. “Excuse me miss, I think this lift is at capacity.”

To the elevator operator’s credit she doesn’t flinch. Round grey eyes lock onto Goro. 

Like the rest this attendant keeps her hair cropped short, if a bit messy. Red bowler hat and peacoat dress ensemble, white stockings, and gloves. For a moment this attendant looks familiar, then they speak.

“Floor, sir?” Any regional accent, sanded away. Any natural timbre, pitched higher.

“Eight please.” 

A groan from the back of the lift tells Goro he’s made the wrong decision. So has the elevator operator if anything. 

“Going up,” they announces then crank the grates, which squeal as they rattle shut. When they throw the lever the lift chugs hard attempting to heave everyone’s weight. Taking a quick glance at the other occupants of the lift, Goro doesn’t think he’s the problem here.

An over dramatic sigh comes from the back of the lift. “I believe I said the lift was over capacity.”

The operator pushes harder on the level.

“Oh lay off her Shido. She’s clearly new, give her a break,” another occupant chuckles. They get a snort in response.

Incredibly new if the the choppy stop at each floor is any indication. The man has been staring daggers at the back of the operator’s head for the entire bumpy ride up. Goro senses an imminent ‘you’re going to lose your job’ talk.

“Floor eight,” the operator announces. “Recreation, museum.” The operator can’t open the grates fast enough. 

“We need to talk.”

Too late. Goro squeezes his eyes shut for a second while he readies his pleasant face. “Of course sir.”

The operator opens the grates and everyone walks out the lift. Not another thought spared for the operator.

They meander to one of the many designated refreshment areas. This one barren, poached of appetisers and drinks. Perfect for a private conversation. Goro walks in after the man and takes note of the emergency exit by the punch bowl.

At the sound the man whirls around. “What are you doing here?”

“I was invited here sir.” Goro says. Amicable, pleasant, his cheeks hurt.

“Invited?” The man thunders.

“It’s related to a case.” He chooses his words carefully.

His gaze flickers to a vein pulsing on the man’s dome.

“What case?” The man hisses. “Your cases come from Lion Manor,” he composes himself. “Goro the establishment has use for your talents. You need to wait for their directives.”

Goro chooses to omit that Lion Manor has been radio silent since they installed him with the office.

“Sir with all due respect I need to build a case repertoire.”

The stumble is subdued. Goro sees it in the twitch of the man’s irises, the vein throbbing in his head.

“Who-? Have some standards about what cases you accept.” The man jabs a finger at Goro’s face.

Goro inhales sharp and resists the urge to roll his eyes. Fie on him for accepting a case from the Okumura family, next time he’ll shoot higher. Perhaps divinity fell in line with the Lion Manor’s lofty standards.

“Maybe you should have been shipped off,” the man says then turns to leave.

“I’ll call the recruiters first thing in the morning,” Goro mutters.

“What was the that?” The man tilts his head towards Goro.

Goro smiles. The man seems unfazed, looking at Goro for a long poignant moment.

“Talk clearly,” the man says gruffly, “and stand up straight,” then turns around, this time for good. “For god’s sake Goro when will you _grow up_?”

Goro watches the man walk off. Grabbing an empty wine bottle, he lobs it up and catches it by the neck with a snap of the wrist.

Honing in on the shiny spot on the back of his head, Goro steps forward and raises his arm.

At that moment the emergency exit slams open. 

In a tangle stumble forth the heiress and the blonde woman in the loud red dress, significantly disheveled. The heiress looks from Goro’s face to the bottleneck in his fist to the bald man walking off. The blonde woman looks like she’s been caught unaware by an oncoming train.

“Detective?” The heiress says quietly.

“Ah,” Goro slackens. Pulling his leg back and setting the wine bottle down, right side up. “Evening Miss Okumura. I’ll…” He looks to the blonde woman, wide-eyed and seeming rather poleaxed by it all.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” Goro says excusing himself.

“Wait detective!” The heiress says louder. The blonde woman wriggles and the heiress tightens her hold on her. “Was that the statesman?” She narrows her eyes, “detective what’s going on?”

“I could say the same to you,” Goro says. Carefully looking between the heiress and the blonde woman.

“Not really,” the heiress points to the bottle.

A scream pierces the air from the floors below, followed by the rest of the ball-goers. A klaxon blares shortly after. 

The blonde woman takes off, gunning for the lifts at breakneck speed. 

“An incident has occurred on the ground floor,” a cool feminine voice announces over the tannoy.

Goro rushes to the railing, the heiress follows. 

“Please do not panic,” the tannoy continues.

More screaming, Goro can’t make out anything through the black smoke billowing up from below.


	3. Chapter 3

At the klaxon’s first ring the heiress drags her charge off for the lifts while Goro himself makes a go at the stairs.

By now the trail on the arsonist is probably stone cold, but hopefully Goro could find something. Who they are, how they’re starting these fires, maybe why.

The fire escape opens to a secluded corner of the lobby. Goro stumbles into the heiress and her struggling… companion.

“Detective.” the heiress greets him with a nod. “On your way out I hope. Very dangerous here.” 

Ah, trying to throw him out already.

“Yes I see the worst has happened.” Goro flashes her a smile. “Same goes for you?” 

“Yes,” the heiress manages before the figure in her arms kicks up their fuss anew. “Darling, are you feeling okay?” The heiress asks holding them tight. “You’ve been rather jumpy all evening.”

“Haru we got a problem!” 

Heavy bootsteps stomp up behind him. Goro whirls around to see double. 

A crick forms in his neck from looking back and forth. The newcomer looks near exactly like the figure struggling in the heiress’s arms, only difference being one wearing red and the newcomer in a blue boilersuit.

A blue boilersuit caked in petrol and brandishing a smoking torch. 

Going off of their matching expressions of shock, this development must be news to them both. The shock dissipates from the heiress’s face, replaced by a gruesome twist to the lip. She digs her claws into the copycat’s hair.

“Who are you?” she asks, her voice serene in stark contrast to the grimace on her face.

“Fuck off.” they growl, to be slapped across the face by the heiress.

“Who are you?” the heiress repeats, frowning at the lipstick smeared on her palm.

The stranger wrenches their head away from the heiress only to reveal they-

Goro gently puts a hand to his cheek.

“Hey.” Ren waves shakily.

Glass shatters behind him and Goro looks in time to see red wine and broken glass cascading down a broken fire axe cabinet. Grabbing the axe, the woman in blue dives and weaves around Goro. “Merry Christmas babe!” she purrs, handing it off to the heiress. 

“How wonderful.” The heiress claps a hand to her cheek, exchanging a tender smile with the woman in blue. A smile that curls into a snarl as she tosses the blond wig aside before charging at Goro.

“ _You_ hired _me_!” Goro shouts, reaching for his side. No gun. “You hired me then did an arson!” Call him biased, but he doesn’t think he’s at fault here. 

Appealing to rationality earns him a swift blow to the side that plants black tendrils in the corners of his sight. A small mercy that it’s the blunt side of the axe. Not that it feels any less like an anvil to the ribs.

“Haru I told you he was too keen!”

Through the soot and haze he watches bright blue and red tangle in the distance. Squinting harder, there’s a little red line attached to the blue figure.

“Yes I see that now,” the heiress grumbles, her voice growing closer. “I suppose this is what I get for enlisting a rookie detective.” 

Goro reaches for his hilt. No sabre. 

“I’m not a-”

“Shhhh.” 

The heiress shushes him with the butt of the axe against his lips. Raising the axe on her shoulder as a pallbearer would a coffin.

“Sleep now little detective.”

And shoves.

Darkness eating his sight gives him little choice but to stumble back into a table. Fumbling for the edge, Goro holds tight to the only source of stability in his life. So naturally it too collapses under him.

Loud splintering and shattering glass leave him on the floor clutching the tablecloth. In the wreckage of the former perfume counter who should it be but his own bedraggled assistant.

“She’s got a whip.” Ren whispers loudly, pawing about the puddle of broken perfume bottles. 

“Duly noted.” Goro coughs then clutches his ribs.

Sometimes Ren finds a bottle intact. They’ll squint at it for a second before flinging it off into the ether. The ether being the cold hard floor.

“Rat!” The woman in blue cracks her whip in the air.

“Girlfriend-impersonating rat.” The heiress follows up, stalking closer to Ren.

Finding a satisfactory bottle, Ren tears the cap and nozzle clean off then tips it into their mouth. 

“Ren no!” Goro wheezes, shakily reaching out to them. Paying him no heed, Ren grabs a pack of matches off the table. They grab half the box’s worth, strike the bundle alight, and blow. 

Goro stops breathing, stops blinking.

His heart thumps hard against his sternum watching Ren spit fire at the face of one of the nation’s most valuable people. Somehow Goro feels more winded than before, and he’s fresh off taking an axe to the gut.

A hiss of leather shooting through the air whaps the bottle from Ren’s hand, leaving them to clutch their hand and splutter out the remaining perfume.

“Miss Okumura there’s been a misunderstanding.” Goro tries again.

“Misunderstanding?” the heiress looks at him, near comically doe-eyed, but there’s a light to her eyes that doesn’t sell the look. He doesn’t get long to criticise her expression as her next statement hits like a bucket of cold water. 

“The only one who’s misunderstood is you.”

Heels click as she walks over to pick up the blond wig and twirls it on a finger. “Having your assistant frame Ann…” the doe eyes return with a stare capable of boring holes. “I’m disappointed in you, detective.”

“That’s not true!” 

“Boss shut up.” Ren says without even facing him and Goro sees red. “I’ll handle this!”

“Excuse you,” he spits. Just because he didn’t fling knives willy nilly about the office doesn’t mean he was bereft of combat ability. Not that he thought flinging knives indicated any modicum of combat ability, or using perfume to spit fire, or...

Goro tears at his side. Bruises, maybe a fracture. No gun. No sabre. His hands flexing open and shut before settling into fists. Combat ability isn’t the issue at hand.

“You’re going to take on a whip and axe?” Goro scoffs, “we need to regroup.” 

Ren looks at him, an awful sight with their lipstick smeared ear to ear mixed with perfume dribbling down their chin. Eyes similarly stained giving them the appearance of melting spiders. 

“Elevators?” Ren asks and Goro nods. Provided they could make it there, going to a different floor should buy them some time.

With that Ren strikes the remaining bundle of matches and tosses them into the lake of ruined perfume, recreating Gehenna between them and those who would harm them.

“Can you walk?” Ren asks, stooping down before him.

Goro bites the inside of his cheek. “Yes.” 

Ren yanks his arm and charges off for the lifts. Pitching Goro in first then diving in after. 

It doesn’t take long for the heiress to catch on and head their way. Out the corner of his eye Goro catches a bolt of blue charging for the stairs.

“Hurry!” Goro watches Ren’s hands shake as they frantically crank the doors shut. 

“I’m trying!” Ren growls and to their credit they are turning the handle very fast. Unfortunately the heiress seems to be gaining on them faster.

The doors click shut and the heiress calmly slows to a stop right before the grates, axe lowered. 

“Okumura Haru.” Ren hisses before Goro can start negotiations. Time freezes as the heiress stares down at Ren, no obvious response to her name. Goro looks between them, Ren glaring at the heiress, the heiress observing Ren like a mildly interesting bug. The feeling of being crushed by an anvil returns.

Ren sticks their tongue out the heiress, and she immediately retaliates by slamming the axe to the grate. The resulting impact shakes the carriage and rattles the doors open.

Goro dives for the door crank but the heiress already has the axe in. Kicking the door open wider she raises the axe again, casting a shadow over Ren. 

Mind blank, serene in its emptiness, Goro claws for Ren. Blood freezing and cracking in his chest when his hands slip off of Ren’s waist before gaining purchase in their dress. 

The axe puts a dent in the carriage’s floor and Ren wastes no time kicking it, offsetting the heiress’s balance and sending her toppling back. With her away from the carriage, Ren trips the up lever and cranks the doors back shut.

The heiress regains her balance, her expression stoic as ever.

“Ann.” she calls out, tilting her head up.

“On it!” 

The response comes somewhere from above. Above Goro and Ren, who are in an elevator going up.

It hits Goro like a pile of bricks, or a pile of severed elevator cables battering the roof of the carriage.

“Done!” A voice yells from above, and the carriage plummets. Putting them back where they started, a thin screen away from the heiress’s axe.

This time when Goro catches Ren opening their mouth _before_ they do something offensive with it and claps a hand over their face.

“Stop it!” he hisses. “Stop ruining everything!”

A tapping comes from the grates. Goro raises his head just in time to see the heiress raise her axe and swing.

Thwack!

There’s a sickening crunch as the door dents and the carriage shakes. Ren grunts as the door crank strains in their grasp. The Okumura heiress is hacking at the door. Goro lets go of Ren’s face to cover his mouth. The Okumura heiress is destroying Okumura property with a fire axe.

“Shit!” Ren grunts as the door crank jostles in their grasp again. Blood burbles up through the cracks of the fingers. Must have ruptured a blister.

Goro reaches for the crank. “Let me, I’m wearing gloves.” 

Another whack at the door warps the iron grates. Ren shakes their head. “Can’t let go.”

Subsequent hits warp the doors further, it’s only a matter of time until the heiress would be able to get her axe in far enough to do some real harm. As for how long exactly…

“Going at this pace the door can probably take another three hits.”

“Thanks,” Ren mutters under their breath before another hit. “Two now.”

Looking at Ren they seem stoic as ever, but their hands quiver on the handle. His hands automatically reach around and settle on top of Ren’s.

Thwack! One hit left.

Goro helps Ren maintain the death grip they have on the door crank, not that it matters with the opening being hacked wider each second. What else could they do though?

Zero. As that last hit wrenches the opening wide enough for the heiress to reach them. She raises her axe.

“Heiress.” 

A new voice, the telltale lilt of the department store attendants. “Please stop damaging store property.” 

The heiress doesn’t move an inch, she keeps her gaze sharp on Goro. “Tell father I’ve found the arsonists. Got them all locked up too.” 

Goro’s heart seizes, his mind blanks out, shaking before he had words for his concerns. Whatever fear he’d harboured before pales in comparison to the new terror. He made it this far. All the years securing a place for it all to evaporate in a second. 

This far to...

Ren squeezes his hand hard, he gasps for breath. 

“Heiress,” the attendant adopts the tone of someone addressing a very small child. “We’ve found the arsonist. Your father has something to say regarding your future with Mr Sugimura.” 

For the first time Goro watches the lines of the heiress’s face soften, she looks tired. 

“Very well,” she says, pulling back her axe and turning away. “Detective, the statesman will be hearing about this,” the heiress says loud and clear before walking off.

Her words fall upon him like a death knell. She saw him, and if it came down to her word against his… Who even was he? Employed by lion manor, yes, but not in a way they would show for him. 

There’s a loud screech as Ren cranks the bent grates open, they stop folding at the warped portion.

“She damaged them a lot,” Ren says. “It won’t open more than this.”

“It’s fine,” Goro sighs. 

The fire burns lower now. The girls in red are gone. It’s empty, cavernous. The ceiling of the store looks sky high, the decorations and tables seem larger. With the establishment larger than ever, leaving it takes ages.

***

“She’s going to wipe our office off the map.” Goro paces from one end of the office to the other.

“Agency’s tiny,” Ren says. “she’s gotta have better rich people things to do.”

Their words hardly help.

“Easier to wipe out then!” Goro paces from the other end of the office back, stopping by the sofa when Ren tugs his sleeve. “What?”

He’s abruptly silenced by a small sweet pressed to his lips. Quietly he takes the sweet and takes a seat by Ren. Only popping the sweet after meticulously picking off all the wrapper. The flavour is rather…

“Old-fashioned isn’t it? You like sweetened kelp?”

“No,” Ren says through a mouthful of kelp candy.

Goro stares at them, perhaps it’s another one of their off colour jokes.

“Still taste the perfume.” They explain, eating another wrapped sweet.

“That’s not rice paper.”

“Okay.”

Definitely off-colour, increasingly seems less a joke. Goro takes the box and sets about picking the wrappers off the rest of the candies. It’s something for his hands to do while thinking about the future. 

Near-sighted he’s been told, though Goro never thought there’d be a day he couldn’t see past. Especially not tomorrow.

“Boss?”

“Hm?”

“If she,” Ren says quietly, looking down. “I mean, tomorrow…”

They heave a long sigh then face Goro. “I was the one-”

Goro presses an unwrapped candy against Ren’s mouth. He keeps pressing until Ren accepts it and shuts up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is basically a free pass to beat me up and take my lunch money. (Please do not beat me up and take my lunch money.)


End file.
